Carpet is typically formed by tufting a face cloth. In the case of carpet tiles, the face cloth may be attached to a stabilizing structural backing to form a carpet web that is then cut into carpet tiles of the desired shape and size.
Designs, patterns, or color is imparted to the face cloth via a tufting operation. A tufting machine can include at least one needle bar with needles arranged across the bar. A colored yarn can be associated with each needle. A backing material is fed under the needle bar, which is reciprocated to drive the needles through and out of the backing material to form loops of yarn or “tufts” in the backing material. As this process continues, the tufts extend across the backing material in generally lateral rows and down the backing material in generally longitudinal columns to form the face cloth.
To impart designs on the face of the face cloth, the needle bar carrying the yarn-bearing needles is capable of limited lateral movement relative to the backing material that can shift the placement of tufts laterally across the backing material. The yarn fed to the needles can also be controlled to vary the height of the tufts placed in the backing. Moreover, both the rate at which the backing material moves relative to the needle bar as well as the rate at which the needle bar creates tufts in the backing material can be controlled to manage the density of the tufts in the face cloth.
In some tufting machines, multiple needle bars are used to enhance opportunities to create designs. Without these capabilities, the resulting product includes tufts extending in lines of a single color along the length of the backing material. To form a non-striped pattern with the tufts, the needle bar shifts laterally to vary the positioning of the different color tufts in the backing material and to vary the height of the tufts to form the desired design or pattern. U.S. Pat. No. 8,347,800 to Carson-Machell et al. and U.S. Patent Publication No. 2009/0205547 to Hall et al. disclose various tufting methodologies.
During the tufting process, yarn is continually fed to each needle on the needle bar. Prior to tufting, yarn of the desired color is wound onto a yarn package. A yarn package is prepared for each tufting needle. The yarn packages are then loaded on a creel and each yarn end associated with the intended needle on the needle bar. During use and as tufting proceeds, the yarn unwinds from the packages.
It is difficult to gauge how much yarn each needle will need in order to create the desired pattern. Moreover, if a single yarn package is depleted during tufting, the entire tufting process must be stopped and the yarn package replaced before tufting can resume. Such a process is extremely time- and labor-intensive and expensive.
To avoid yarn packages from running out during tufting, the yarn packages are typically over-prepared, meaning that more yarn than will be necessary is provided on the package. Depending on the complexity of the pattern and diversity of yarn color used to create it, some yarn packages are over-prepared by as much as 85% to 100%. Moreover, the unused yarn remaining on the yarn packages after tufting must be spliced and repackaged. Yarn can only be wound onto and unwound from yarn packages so many times before it becomes unusable.